The answer is for people to stop trying to dictate working conditions in other countries. If they were consistent about that, they'd criticize the US for not giving a year of paid maternity leave (like Canada) or for not giving as much vacation and the short work week of European countries.

How do small businesses handle this? Your employee leaves for one year, so you have to hire someone else and pay for their training to replace them. Then a year later the first employee returns, what does the small business do to the temporary worker who has been there for a year? I understand that the Employment Insurance pays for the maternity leave but how is the business owner and the temporary worker compensated?

Actually, we kind of do know what we're doing. There is such a thing as repetitive stress injury (RSI) that will occur if these people continue to work assembly lines 60+ hours/week. If you want your iPhone so cheap that you want workers in another country maimed for life, you are sub-human. There is nothing whatsoever stupid about cutting their time to 49 hours a week. Oh, and by the way, 49 hours/week is the law there. So your objection about westerners not knowing about eastern cultures falls badly flat. Grow up and learn something.

We all need to grow up and learn that we cannot think for ourselves and that big government and the elitists will take care of us, right?

Have you ever worked in China? Ever visited there? Ever seen how iPhones are assembled?

If Foxconn would give all of its workers a hoodie with an Apple logo on it, then they will quickly get over this stupid idea that working hard will allow them and their families to live a better life.

Perfect. Ignorant and arrogant westerners trying to tell the rest of the world how they should live. It is truly amazing how little we know and understand about other countries and cultures. Stupidity abounds. Oh, but it's for their own good don't you know.

The complaint raised now is that the workers won't make enough money if their hours are cut so this leads to the following:

Problem 1: workers are overworked because they are underpaid
Solution 1: workers have their working time cut
Problem 2: workers might not make enough money because they are still underpaid
Solution 2: the workers are paid more

As discussed many times, Apple alone could double the salary of each low-level worker by charging a mere $5 on top of the price of just the iPad or Apple could absorb that cost into their margins. Just because Chinese workers accept that they have no rights to demand higher pay doesn't mean that we should accept that too when have more than enough resources of our own to ensure it happens.

The complaint raised now is that the workers won't make enough money if their hours are cut so this leads to the following:

Problem 1: workers are overworked because they are underpaid
Solution 1: workers have their working time cut
Problem 2: workers might not make enough money because they are still underpaid
Solution 2: the workers are paid more

As discussed many times, Apple alone could double the salary of each low-level worker by charging a mere $5 on top of the price of just the iPad or Apple could absorb that cost into their margins. Just because Chinese workers accept that they have no rights to demand higher pay doesn't mean that we should accept that too when have more than enough resources of our own to ensure it happens.

Why don't you just say that FreeRange is right, instead of demonstrating it!

Here's a likely outcome: Apple's costs may actually fall, since there is less overtime (which is usually paid at >1x of standard wages)!

Ah, the irony.

The unintended consequences that do-gooders leave behind never ceases to amaze me....

I think the wages in China issue will fade because of the planned increase of robotic assembly and those remaining high wage labor issues will be diffused thanks to planned use of non-China labor. See... problem solved. When labor became the sticking point, Foxconn will now simply use less labor.

one thing... one BILLION seconds in 32 years.. 15 TRILLION dollars debt (15 million million). that is not counting the deficit...
so lets make the 1% percenters pay!... only approx 312,500 dollars a year, for 32 years by 1.5 MILLION people. (and that is not counting the interest rate which will most likely double the debt, meaning that will only pay off half of it).

just beware the 1% percenters do not have the means to pay off the debt or deficit... meaning the government coming after you... collectting 2.5 TRILLION dollars a year in taxes, when you need 4 TRILLION just to balance the budget or pay off the debt via cuts to spending. IMO

so this is not a government problem it is YOUR PROBLEM, the money comes from you... if the median salary is about 25366 a year (half make more, and half make less) where are the taxes coming from?... from a tax system similiar to canada... at least 8 percent federal sales tax, and greater business taxes and or federal taxes... does not matter where it is coming from you will pay more for less services.

TL;DR... i do not know the solution, but it is impossible for taxes NOT to increase in the USA... (in Canada they are already quite high..)

The US has already one of the most progressive tax system in the world. The top 1% pay something like 40% of all federal income taxes; the top 10% pay close to 70% while the bottom 50% pay almost nothing - but receive the majority of social welfare benefits (excluding interstate roads). So your class warfare rhetoric has no basis. Sure, the gov't welfare (for the banking, agri, special interests) is a major contributing factor to the wealth inequality; but that's what you get when you have a big gov't.

so can we please let it go? It's not China or Foxconn's (or even Apple's) fault that US is so screwed up.

If the tax revenue goes up, the gov't will spend it just as fast - likewise, the national debt hasn't decreased since 1957.

For Foxconn, it may or may not be the case that the $1.75/hour includes some amortization of fixed costs of the type you're mentioning, although I'd bet it does.

In any event, as I said, it is only true if overtime work costs more per hour than regular work.

Overtime salary in my experience is always higher than regular work (and should be), but will reduce the gross hourly rate because most other expenses do not increase or increases less as working hours (from a fixed amount of workers) increase. This would probably to a greater extent be true in China than in US because the Chinese wage level is low, but still Chinese industry has to pay international prices for production equipment.

No, it's the truth. First we got Reagan's record setting deficits that damaged the economy for years. Then Bush Jr. Comes along and almost destroys the economy with his, and a war that we never should have had. No matter what we do, it will take 20 years to work ourselves out of that one.

Interestingly, it's a voter issue, not a political party issue. Both Republicans and Democrats have looted the taxpayers as they have traded power for decades, but the reason is that politicians gain power by making unrealistic promises, then forcing powerless groups of people to pay for the undeserved wants and needs of other people. That's politics. That's government. Both parties are an illusion. The end result is that taxpayers get soaked because of competing interests.

They lied about Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction and chemical agents. All lies. Had we known the truth we would not have gone along with that cluster fk of a war. As soon as we pull out of those countries they will return to exactly what they were before if not worse. The US should learn to stay out of other countries and keep other countries' citizens from residing here or studying in our universities.

ok, but the moderator's point is that the decision to go after Iraq had backing of both liberals and conservatives. Contrary to popular belief, most liberals aren't even anti-war. Folks like Sanders, Grayson, Paul are fringe figures in their own party.

Overtime salary in my experience is always higher than regular work (and should be), but will reduce the gross hourly rate because most other expenses do not increase or increases less as working hours increase. This would probably to a greater extent be true in China than in US because the Chinese wage level is low, but still Chinese industry has to pay international prices for production equipment.

I think you're still evading my question.

Maybe I was not stating it well. So I'll ask it differently.

Assume that 3 hours of labor and 2 units of initial capital (e.g., time on a machine tool) are required to produce 1 widget. Assume that 'standard' labor costs $5/hour, overtime labor (which, you agree, should generally cost more) costs $6/hour, and one unit of capital costs $10.

The complaint raised now is that the workers won't make enough money if their hours are cut so this leads to the following:

Problem 1: workers are overworked because they are underpaid
Solution 1: workers have their working time cut
Problem 2: workers might not make enough money because they are still underpaid
Solution 2: the workers are paid more

As discussed many times, Apple alone could double the salary of each low-level worker by charging a mere $5 on top of the price of just the iPad or Apple could absorb that cost into their margins. Just because Chinese workers accept that they have no rights to demand higher pay doesn't mean that we should accept that too when have more than enough resources of our own to ensure it happens.

Workers are paid a competitive wage based on market conditions, unless wages are inflated due to regulations or government interference.

ok, but the moderator's point is that the decision to go after Iraq had backing of both liberals and conservatives. Contrary to popular belief, most liberals aren't even anti-war. Folks like Sanders, Grayson, Paul are fringe figures in their own party.

The decision to invade Afghanistan was bipartisan, I don't remember the Iraq invasion being completely supported by both "sides".

However, regardless of whatever law was passed by whomever. The people directly affected are now wondering why they can't work more hours. This is also a "fundamental fact of the situation."

So the answer they should be told is that that the law says they can only work 49 hours a week. Which they probably were told (but that has been left out of the articles)

it sucks for them that they are worried about their families etc but it sucks more that they are being used as hit fodder by websites looking for more ad revenue etc. Then again, conditions at the factories have been used as prime hit fodder for ages so its no really a shock that its continuing.

No, it's the truth. First we got Reagan's record setting deficits that damaged the economy for years. Then Bush Jr. Comes along and almost destroys the economy with his, and a war that we never should have had. No matter what we do, it will take 20 years to work ourselves out of that one.

I'm surprised to see you dive into politics. I reckon if the mods do, it's open season for the trolls.

Because for the overtime the equation goes in the limiting case like this:

2* 5 + 1*6 + 2*0 = $16

in the extreme situation. Overtime does not require more rent for the building, does not increase your interest, hardly increases management costs, and the production equipment will cost less per hour because you increase the utilization, and physical wear is rarely the limiting factor, technological life is, so a high uptime results in a lower average cost.

Actually, we kind of do know what we're doing. There is such a thing as repetitive stress injury (RSI) that will occur if these people continue to work assembly lines 60+ hours/week. If you want your iPhone so cheap that you want workers in another country maimed for life, you are sub-human. There is nothing whatsoever stupid about cutting their time to 49 hours a week. Oh, and by the way, 49 hours/week is the law there. So your objection about westerners not knowing about eastern cultures falls badly flat. Grow up and learn something.

Hurray ktappe! Apart from Zither and one or two others it seems that this board is overwhelmingly composed of idealistic xenophobes.

That anyone should maintain the slightest concern for all people, without a will to mastery, without designs for slavery, is seemingly beyond the ruffians of the American social experiment. That teenage girls and boys in China should be having prom, meeting friends for froyos, taking minivans to beiber concerts, and all the unlovely diaspora of stupid shit that our own sons and daughters occupy themselves with, that that should even be a hope that we might express, is for some reason an incomprehensible scenario for the new Aryan elite. Elite, I may add, only in the sense that they are possessed of the greatest will to OVERPOWER, not elite in an intellectual sense, or moral sense, or by any measure of the older, and by the approximation of these cattle, superfluous, VALUES of our old champions of Truth and Justice, that is, the Voltaires, the Mandelas, the JFKs, et al. Surely, we've returned to the old imperialist dogmas of social decay and ideological stagnation that is ever the concomitant of thoroughly Christian (read: uneducated) societies. And when we've been outflanked economically, should we have any doubt that we will have a single solution to that problem, that old imperialist's solution, namely, an uneconomic outflanking?

China is no better. In fact, the Chinese government is undoubtedly composed of the selfsame "social elite" (to remind you, elite only in the sense that they are possessed of a refined HATRED for their fellow man; a hatred that permits any number of advantages over a well-composed society that wills the dignity of all of its members, that is, a wholly un-capitalistic society, a wholly un-imperialistic society; a wholly novel society, one might suggest.)

But all that is neither here nor there. The whiners here are upset that the masses have spoken, and rather than the hoarse call for slavery that our whiners had hoped for, they cried clearly for the dignity of their foreign counterpart. Think of it! The fat American slobs, the unemployed, unpowerful masses, would rather pay a little more for an iPad than see young men and women maimed for life! Young men and women that they will never meet; a rather uncharacteristic sentiment, wouldn't you say? It seems all too much like something our old champions would have told us to hope for; the wish, we might dare say, of the voltaires and JFKs.

Maybe then the AppleInsider forums are an unusual cross-section of our seemingly unlovely middle class. I have to say, walking around the streets of Palo Alto today, I don't feel like these people have refined their hatred so thoroughly that a call for human dignity rings in their ears like a call for the castration of our economic model, like you AI "elitists" (that "elitist" that I described to you before) would have us believe.

No, whatever you monsters are, you're at least not the rule. And we should be glad for that, if nothing else.

Damn Apple! Depriving these people of the overtime they need to properly provide for their families. We need to organize and get a petition started that will force Apple to end these tyrannical practices.

No, you should be saying Damm Chinese Government. Because they are the ones that set the rules that Foxconn is being forced to follow. If the rules change, Foxconn's practices will change. And if it is in their best interest for those rules to change they will led the cries for it to happen

Because for the overtime the equation goes in the limiting case like this:

2* 5 + 1*6 + 2*0 = $16

in the extreme situation. Overtime does not require more rent for the building, does not increase your interest, hardly increases management costs, and the production equipment will cost less per hour because you increase the utilization, and physical wear is rarely the limiting factor, technological life is, so a high uptime results in a lower average cost.

I give up, since, at this point, your numbers make no sense.

If you'd like to believe that substitution of the same labor input from a checklist named "ABC" to a checklist that is then renamed "XYZ" has any real impact on anything else -- except the cost of said labor -- you're certainly welcome to!

The answer is for people to stop trying to dictate working conditions in other countries.

No one is. Not in this matter. They dictated that the factories should follow their local laws. Nothing more or less. And the law is that you can't work more than 36 hours of OT a month. yes it sucks for folks that have nothing to do with the rest of their time, are saying for college or sending the money home. Now they will have to find another solution like a second job, or getting the laws changed.

It's also possible that these people are not the norm or the majority but were picked, rather like Mike Daisey's story of the mangled hand, because they would get attention and page hits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mstone

How do small businesses handle this? Your employee leaves for one year, so you have to hire someone else and pay for their training to replace them.

In the US, most of the time you don't have to allow the first employee back, especially if the position was filled. There are very limited cases where you have to keep a job for someone but often it doesn't have to be the same job or even the same pay etc. It's all in the nature of at will employment.

The thing I worry about is ignoramus liberal arts majors who oppose profit might actually sacrifice Apple to their god. In their minds, companies that make a profit should be stopped. Only unprofitable companies should be allowed.

Also, they oppose poor people striving and working overtime. Instead, these "labor activists" believe poor people should not be employed at low wages. Instead, they should be given aid and live as prisoners who are forced to worship powerful aid and NGO executives, who are the god-heads of the liberal establishment. And I am a social liberal and humanitarian. I'm just not knee-jerk anti-corporate or anti-low wage worker.

Ask yourself what is feeding 3 billion people in China/India. Clue: It isn't NGOs, Angelina Jolie, Bono or Brad Pitt, NPR or the New York Times. These people are working hard and earning what they get, like real adults. We don't need to assume everyone of a different color or culture is a child.

If you'd like to believe that substitution of the same labor input from a checklist named "ABC" to a checklist that is then renamed "XYZ" has any real impact on anything else -- except the cost of said labor -- you're certainly welcome to!

I have some experience working with US Government auditors on projected cost. They are always interested in the the amount of projected overtime. The very simple reason is that they know overtime will bring the hourly costs down.
With all due respect, I find it hard to believe you know much of running a production business.

The thing I worry about is ignoramus liberal arts majors who oppose profit might actually sacrifice Apple to their god. In their minds, companies that make a profit should be stopped. Only unprofitable companies should be allowed.

Also, they oppose poor people striving and working overtime. Instead, these "labor activists" believe poor people should not be employed at low wages. Instead, they should be given aid and live as prisoners who are forced to worship powerful aid and NGO executives, who are the god-heads of the liberal establishment. And I am a social liberal and humanitarian.

Ask yourself what is feeding 3 billion people in China/India. Clue: It isn't NGOs, Angelina Jolie, Bono or Brad Pitt, NPR or the New York Times. These people are working hard and earning what they get, like real adults. We don't need to assume everyone of a different color or culture is a child.

It's embarrassing that the only reason they can make enough is by working tons of overtime. It would decrease Apple's profits slightly and the Foxconn CEO said it's entirely possible to do and he would love to give them pay increases.

No, you should be saying Damm Chinese Government. Because they are the ones that set the rules that Foxconn is being forced to follow. If the rules change, Foxconn's practices will change. And if it is in their best interest for those rules to change they will led the cries for it to happen

I was just being stupid... making fun of the activists that helped bring about this change in overtime hours.

Like it or not, the situation in these countries is very different than it is here. These people can be hundreds of miles from their families, and even the wages they make are far higher than what they would make at home. So sure, many don't mind working what we would consider to be backbreaking hours. They're used to that.

If not in a factory, they would be working 12 hours a day on the farm for far less. But that's how developing countries move up into the developed world. It's only once they get there that people don't want to work hard anymore.

So here, people can't wait to finish their 8 hours and run home to do nothing of import. But there, they'd rather be working.

I keep saying that our standards are not theirs, and we have no right to try to make it so. So, safe working conditions, minimum wages and benefits, yes. But otherwise, we should leave them alone.

We look at Europe, and see some countries where working conditions are, from our viewpoint in the US, ridiculous. We think that it's one of the causes of their problems. They often get 8 weeks vacation, 6 weeks sick leave. Retire after 20 years, etc. they think we're barbarians because WE work too hard. So, it's all relative.

+++ for truth

I found it highly ironic that China (the country that so many American see as nothing but one big forced labor camp) requires by law that their workers work less hours than any American law.

I also find it ironic that Germany, one of those European countries that work less is currently kicking our (the US) butt in manufacturing and economic growth.

Talk about seeing the splinter in someone else eye while ignoring the log in your own. But then again, they wouldn't be crazy liberals or conservative nazis if they weren't telling someone else how to live their life.

I also find it ironic that Germany, one of those European countries that work less is currently kicking our (the US) butt in manufacturing and economic growth.

Germany is impressive, but Germany also doesn't have a ginormous military to nurse. However Germans do have to pay something like 10% tax off the top for their chosen religious organization--someone else here might be able to correct/clarify this point.

It's embarrassing that the only reason they can make enough is by working tons of overtime. It would decrease Apple's profits slightly and the Foxconn CEO said it's entirely possible to do and he would love to give them pay increases.

How myopic. There are billions of people suffering in the world (these factory workers are relatively affluent). They make 10 dollars a day or more. Way more than most people in the world do.

We all "deserve" to make more money, but this Apple wage thing is just a random fixation of flinty journalists who are blessedly naive about how resources are allocated in this world, and why. And, why capitalism is better than communism, in purely humanitarian terms.

Just to nitpick a bit -- I don't think it has anything to do with culture. I think it's a lack of hard-headedness on the part of people with good intentions.

I remember a story about a first lady back in the 19th century who was upset by the low quality housing that poor people had in a part of DC. She led a campaign to solve the problem by tearing down the houses, but without doing anything to provide better houses. Unbelievably, she didn't consider that maybe a crappy house is better than none at all.

This Foxconn thing strikes me as a similar situation. This isn't slavery or prison labor. That is, these folks are choosing to work at Foxconn because it's a better option than anything else they could do. If you're going to lead a campaign to take their jobs away from them, then you better also be leading a campaign to get them a better job. But obviously that's a lot of work -- far easier to just whine.

Im a bit confused about the comments on here, from what I read from another article yesterday it was said that:

Quote:

The FLA said Foxconns commitment will reduce working hours to legal limits while protecting pay, improve health and safety conditions, establish a genuine voice for workers, and will monitor on an ongoing basis to verify compliance. This will lead to a maximum 49-hour workweek, including overtime for employees and a decrease in monthly overtime from 80 hours to 36 hours. While we reported some workers were unhappy with working fewer hours, Foxconn also committed to a compensation package for workers with reduced overtime

So from Im taking out of all this FOXCONN commitment is that workers will work less but they WILL NOT notice any considerable difference in their regular salaries. Please correct me if Im wrong

I was basically talking about production costs, and I clearly understand that you don't have the faintest idea about how variable costs and fixed costs works in.
The start of this discussion was the belief that Foxcon did not understand this, and would be helped by the superior understanding from people on this site to reduce their costs.
I believe that Foxcon understand their own costs pretty well, I also believe that when people in the west try to help them, this may have other motives.
I detest the political regime in China, but I believe companies like Foxcon represent an improvement to the conditions, and I hate to see reactionaries in the west critisise them for not being up to our standard when it is totally out of place.